Abstract

This dissertation comprises two interrelated essays that examine how affect influences fake news discernment and sharing intentions on social media platforms. The first essay systematically reviews existing literature to identify theoretical foundations, research themes, and gaps. It emphasizes the absence of affect in theoretical models of misinformation and the design of social media interventions. This provided motivation for the second essay, which presents three online studies that investigate the impact of three affective constructs: mood arousal, affective cues, and emotion, alongside the cognitive disposition of actively open-minded thinking (AOT) on fake news discernment and sharing intentions in a social media context. Study 1 demonstrated that mood arousal impaired fake news discernment at low AOT levels, had no impact at moderate AOT levels, and improved discernment at high AOT levels, demonstrating a continuum of mood arousal regulation ranging from dysregulation to adaptive optimization. It also demonstrated that mood arousal increased fake news sharing intentions only at low AOT levels. Study 2 found that affective cues impaired fake news discernment and increased sharing intentions regardless of AOT levels, suggesting such cues bypass affective regulation. Study 3 revealed that while emotional experiences diminished the influence of mood arousal, emotion itself had no direct effect on either fake news discernment or sharing intent, nor was it moderated by AOT. Overall, this work underscores key differences between the affective constructs and the need for fake news interventions that account for both cognitive and affective dimensions in emotionally charged online environments.